1. Field of the Invention
An embodiment of the invention relates to telecommunications, and in particular, to methods, systems, and software for allocating network resources in packet networks.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In circuit switched telecommunication networks, line and trunk circuits have a dedicated amount of bandwidth. When a switch selects a line for a call, it is implied that the line has enough bandwidth for the call if the line is available. If the line is not available, the switch is typically prohibited from setting up the call. In this manner, a situation in which a switch continues to set up new calls when the network does not have adequate resources is unlikely to occur.
In contrast, packet switched telecommunication networks do not have lines or trunks with dedicated amounts of bandwidth. Rather, packet switched networks route calls over links with variable amounts of bandwidth. In addition to link bandwidth, other devices, such as routers or gateways, might have bandwidth limits that constrain network operations. Furthermore, the bandwidth of each individual call in a packet switched network could vary. For example, a call using a G.711 Coder/Decoder (codec) uses up to eight times as much bandwidth as a call using a G.729 codec. Thus, it has become a common problem in packet switched networks that new calls are setup when the network does not have adequate resources to handle the new calls.